[kwlug-disc] Small, ARM64-based computers (was: Raspberry pi 4)

[Francisco Dominguez]

Looks promising but the video support seems like a big gap…

Warning: Software for the Quartz64 is still early in development, and therefore currently lacks features such as the ability to produce video output. You are strongly encouraged to procure a 3.3V UART serial adapter capable of running at 1.5 mbauds, such as the woodpecker if you want to use a Quartz64 at this stage.

Francisco 
fxdoming at gmail.com

> On Dec 7, 2021, at 2:29 PM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> 
> Quoting Ronald Barnes (ron at ronaldbarnes.ca):
> 
> [Pine64 Quartz SoC, https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/Quartz64 :]
> 
>> That PCIe expansion slot is intriguing!
> 
> In sub-model A.  There's also sub-model B, which offers M.2.
> 
>> The value of which cannot be overstated.  Adding expansion storage
>> to my rPi 4 would be more expensive than anticipated and somewhat of
>> a hassle.
> 
> The 8GB LPDDR4 RAM option is likewise getting up into real-computer
> territory, and I note that sub-model A also has one (1) SATA 3.0 header.
> The immediately preceding ROCKPro64 SoC
> (https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/ROCKPro64) also merits respect, but maxes
> out at 4GB LPDDR4 RAM.
> 
> I keep watching the ARM single-board computer marketplace for units
> fully suited to home-server usage, and ideally want the hardware to
> include:
> 
> o  8 GB or greater RAM, so that I can comfortably run a pair of VMs
>   under a hardened small host system.  There are certainly other
>   ways to do this, but the two-VMs model provides a production server
>   host alongside an in-development beta host that will be rolled out
>   on flag day by simply promoting (re-IPing) the beta to production, 
>   and starting a new beta VM.
> 
> o  RAID1 redundant main storage on something better/faster/more-reliable than 
>   USB 3.0-attached or microSD or eMMC storage.  Like, guys?  NVMe SSD
>   storage on an M.2 slot is a terrific idea, but why not two slots, please?  
> 
> o  Fanless, silent, and low-power, which is where ARM64 helps.
> 
> The generally meritorious hardkernel.com ODROID SoCs mentioned upthread 
> share with the Pine64 being less limited than the RPis, but to my
> knowledge none of their units yet ticks all of my checkboxes for an
> in-home server platform.
> 
> The marketplace doesn't recognise the existence of a home-server niche
> (which is understandable, as those of us who want robust computing
> infrastructure at home are "rara avibus".  Over the last decade, the
> niche that seemed closest to filling home-server needs, it seemes to me,
> has been the HTPC (home theatre PC) one, like low-power AMD-based
> mini-ITX boxes with a pair of SATA drives.  With the rise of ARM64 /
> aarch64, we are now seeing additional possibles.
> 
> 
> 
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